Industrialization & Innovation
What is the term for making products in large quantities, which began in New England in the early 1800s?
Mass production
This device, perfected by Samuel Morse, used electric signals to send messages across long distances almost instantly.
the telegraph
By 1840, how many hours did the average factory employee work each day?
11.4 hours
This 1793 invention by Eli Whitney could remove seeds from cotton fibers 50 times faster than a human could by hand.
The cotton gin
What was the name for the largest group of white Southerners—farmers who owned small farms of 50 to 200 acres?
Yeomen
Who was the inventor who patented the sewing machine in 1846, allowing for the mass production of clothing?
Elias Howe
Who designed and built the Tom Thumb, the first American steam-powered locomotive?
Peter Cooper
What were the groups formed by skilled workers in the 1830s to fight for better pay and shorter workdays?
Trade unions
While the North became more industrial, the South’s economy remained based on this activity.
Agriculture (or farming)
What were the laws called that were designed to control enslaved people and prevent them from rebelling or traveling?
Slave codes
During the first phase of industrialization, what did business owners do to make production more efficient?
They divided jobs into smaller steps so each worker could specialize in one task
What major engineering project opened in 1825, connecting the Midwest to the East and transforming trade?
The Erie Canal
What specific disaster in Ireland led to the deaths of one million people and caused massive immigration to the U.S.?
The Great Irish Famine (caused by potato blight)
Give one reason why industry grew more slowly in the South than in the North.
Cotton was extremely profitable (planters chose to invest in land and enslaved people rather than factories), or the market for manufactured goods was small (enslaved people had no money to buy goods)
Who was the popular religious leader and enslaved man who led a violent, armed revolt in Virginia in 1831?
Nat Turner
By 1860, what fraction of the country’s manufactured goods were produced by factories in the Northeast?
2/3
These sleek sailing ships, with their tall sails and smooth hulls, could sail 300 miles a day and cut travel time in half.
Clipper ships
What was the name of the political party formed by nativists who wanted stricter citizenship laws and "Americans to rule America"?
The Know-Nothing Party (or the American Party)
This was one major reason for the South’s lower literacy rate compared to the North
Thinly populated nature of the South (making schools hard to reach) or the lack of public funding for education
Enslaved African Americans often sang these religious folk songs to express joy, or sadness, or to communicate secretly.
Spirituals
How did a worker’s job change during the third phase of industrialization?
The worker no longer did the physical task (like weaving) but instead tended the machine that did the work
Between 1840 and 1860, the amount of railroad track in the United States grew from 3,000 miles to how many miles?
31,000 mi
Who was the Massachusetts weaver who founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Organization to petition for a 10-hour workday?
Sarah G. Bagley
What do historians call the system where enslaved people from the Upper South were sold to planters in the Deep South?
The domestic slave trade
According to the narrative of Moses Grandy, what did runaways use to guide them on their dangerous journeys toward the North?
The North Star (Polaris)